Jersey City Curfew Tackles Crime, but May Hit Profits, Too

By JASON GEORGE

Published: March 26, 2005

If there is a location that embodies this city's crime crisis, it is the intersection of Communipaw and Crescent Avenues.

After midnight, drug dealers lean on the windows outside the Crown Fried Chicken, moving only to pop their hands in and out of passing cars that never completely stop as they crawl up the hill. Across the street, another cluster of youths stand in front of Rodriguez Brother's Supermarket, where the police say two men recently stashed handguns they were using to rob customers who entered the bodega.

In all, this patch of Jersey City had nearly 800 police, fire and other emergency calls last year -- about one every 11 hours, on average. The calls were at least convenient for police officers: Their district precinct house is just a block away.

Beginning late Saturday, however, Crown and Rodriquez Brother's will be just two of many late-night establishments that will be shuttered, as the city begins a curfew on businesses on 135 blocks. From 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., in 12 citywide strips, all businesses except pharmacies and bars are required to close, in the belief that shutting these restaurants, convenience stores and barbershops will curtail crime and vagrancy.

Many of the owners and managers of the affected businesses say they are being penalized for the misdeeds of a few. They say they are being held responsible for a crime problem that instead should be attacked with improved police response, not measures that cut into their livelihoods.

Community leaders, residents and city officials say they are desperate to make it safer to live in a city that recently endured a crime wave usually reserved for the sticky months of summer. The City Council approved the curfew last July, and it is finally taking effect this weekend.

It superseded a 1987 curfew law that had been enforced sporadically, usually based on its popularity with the administration in power. City officials decided it was time to revive the curfew, and nearly double its scope, from 73 blocks, and so the new law was passed. ''It's time for government to say that if you guys can't control your businesses, then we're going to exercise our right to make sure that you're not going to be doing that kind of business after 11 p.m.,'' Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy said this week. ''All of these areas have been problems, serious problems.''

Business curfews by cities are rare, according to civil liberty and business advocacy groups, and they are usually found in towns much smaller than Jersey City, with a population of 240,000, like Peekskill, N.Y., with 22,000 residents. It is not the first time, though, that Jersey City has had such an ordinance.

''The purpose of this regulation is to discourage and decrease the present trend of criminal activity, especially drug-related criminal activity, which occurs at or with retail establishments in the area subject to the regulation,'' the 1987 ordinance said.

Mr. Healy, who became mayor in a special election in November and who will face two challengers for his office in May, said the new curfew was a way to address the many street crimes that have been affecting the quality of life here.

''I've heard constant complaints over the last at least 10 years from people that live in these areas that there's arguing, yelling, fighting, stabbing, shooting, drug dealing, carjacking -- you name it,'' he said. ''It's going on at 1 and 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning.''

While certain areas are being revitalized because of an influx of professionals who work in Manhattan lured by moderately priced housing and the easy commuting from Jersey City, much of the city remains poor and crime ridden. The police force, meanwhile, has the fewest officers in 50 years: 791, down from a peak of more than 1,200.

Beulah Wilkerson, who owns Beulah's Sweet Shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, received at least 17 tickets under the 1987 ordinance and sued the city, claiming that 95 percent of residents of the affected areas were black and that the curfew was ''tantamount to racial gerrymandering'' and therefore unconstitutional.

Her case reached a state appellate court but she lost; a lower court also ruled against other business owners who had filed suit. All the judges found that the ordinance was within the city's right to make ordinances for ''the order and protection of persons and property, and for the preservation of the public health, safety and welfare of the municipality and its inhabitants.''

The courts also referred to a precedent set in 1980, when the State Supreme Court affirmed the legality of a five-block business curfew in Springfield Township. There, a convenience store chain had challenged a 1977 ordinance that exists to this day.

Yet even before the courts affirmed that Jersey City was on sound legal footing, city officials were aware that the ordinance could appear to be focusing unjustly on select areas within the city.

''By singling out businesses on three streets within Jersey City for selective regulations, we must demonstrate that these businesses, and no others, are the source of problems which the proposed ordinance addresses,'' Glenn D. Cunningham, the Jersey City mayor who died last year, wrote in a memo to the city attorney in 1987, when he was a city councilman.

This time, the expansion of the curfew to districts across the city should further ensure its legality, the mayor and other officials said. ''Does that buttress the city's position that it's not racially motivated? Yes,'' said Bill Matsikoudis, the current city attorney, who added that the new areas were not added for this reason.

Lawyers in New Jersey and for national organizations who study or practice constitutional and municipal law said Jersey City is on solid ground with how the ordinance is zoned, but may face legal problems in how it grants exemptions from the curfew to business owners.

While a business owner must now prove certain facts, like a history of regularly remaining open past 11 p.m., the ordinance also grants discretion to the police director, who ultimately decides who gets an exemption.

''Once you create these exceptions, which grant this kind of broad authority and discretion to officials, then you do run into legal issues,'' said Ronald Chen, associate dean of academic affairs at Rutgers University, who is an expert in constitutional law. ''My gut instinct is that that sounds problematic.'' He added, ''Police may be called out for any number of reasons that may have nothing to do with your conduct.''

Ms. Wilkerson, 59, who sells her groceries behind yellowed panes of plastic glass, doubts that she will be able to get an exemption from the curfew. She still does not like the idea of a business curfew.

''I just feel they should get the people who are committing the crimes,'' she said.

Her store will be open for only two hours unless she changes her schedule from its current 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. hours, something she is not planning to do. ''I've been here for more than 20 years,'' she said. But, she said, ''I'm not even buying anything, in case I close.''

Down the street at the Detroit Diner, Nasir Jumriyani said he had already cut his staff, fearing losses in the hours that provide him with more than a third of his revenue.

''I've been in this business since 1989,'' he said. ''Do you think I want to work at 3 in the morning? I'd rather watch the news and go to sleep.''

Photos: Many Jersey City businesses must close at 11 p.m. under the new curfew. (Photo by G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times)(pg. B1); Crown Fried Chicken is among the businesses on more than 130 blocks in Jersey City that must abide by a new curfew. Community leaders say they are desperate to make it safer to live in the city. (Photo by G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times)(pg. B2)

Chart/Map: ''Curbing Late-Night Problems''
Jersey City plans to enforce a curfew that would require that businesses in
some districts be closed from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. The law is meant to
eliminate the hangouts of troublemakers and would affect businesses on
more than 130 blocks.